Cheese:)

We are a CHEESE family! Well, at least 3 of us are...and the 4th doesn't exactly complain when he has to eat it:) Cheese is one of the few things that our selective little C will always happily eat (though she occassionally gets picky about which color is currently acceptable). And sweet, adventurous K literally comes up out of her chair, shaking with excitement when she sees you pull out the cheese. Not to mention the fact that the mama in this family tracks down cheese stores in every town we visit and always lingers over the display cases trying to find something unique to try.

I promise that it is only a coincidence that our property is merely a short drive to a small, local cheese factory! I didn't even know the factory was there until after we had signed on the dotted line. Believe me, if I had known we would have stopped there every time we were in town!

As we are trying to learn about this little mountain community that is to be our home away from home, we are discovering lots of little secrets...and some not so secret treasures! The Ashe County Cheese Factory is one of those treasures.

For our first visit we had to have the mild hoop cheddar. It's a staple. And it was a BIG hit:)

But, for our second choice I wanted something stronger and with a little more potency...and boy did we get it! This one packed quite a punch. I think I was the only one who actually liked it on our simple crackers...I do like my cheese nice and STRONG! But, on our return to reality we discovered that it makes a delicious cheese sauce to serve with chicken or over pasta....mmmmmm!

We fell in love with our river even without the convenient cheese access...but, this is a huge bonus!